Judy and Howie Blatt in 1996.
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In 1983, Howard Blatt was a middle-aged married father working as an electrical engineer at MIT when he collapsed in the kitchen. He had a stroke.
The health accident left him with paralyzed arms and legs, as well as nearly losing his speech. He was diagnosed with aphasia, a brain disorder that can occur after strokes and head injuries, and robs people of their ability to communicate.
Here’s how Blatt, who died on May 7 at his home near Boston at the age of 88, described his post-stroke condition: “No speech – zip. Speech – zip. One incident. Changed life.”
Although he used adaptive devices to overcome some of his physical disabilities, he never fully recovered. And he discovered, to his dismay, that support networks for people with aphasia were rare in the early 1980s.
So, with his wife and a small group of others, Blatt helped create an organization that may be his most important legacy: the Aphasia Community Group, now one of the nation’s oldest and largest support groups for people with aphasia and their families. .
Many of its members say the group — founded in 1990 at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston and now based at Boston University — rescued them from isolation.
Offers a variety of services and activities – including concerts, book groups, potluck meals, health information, and technology tips for managing disabilities – as well as companionship for people whose speech is stolen by strokes and other brain injuries.
“You think, oh God, I’m the only one,” said Mary Borelli, 61, a former elementary school principal in Massachusetts who became speechless after suffering a stroke at age 47. When she first joined the Aphasia Community Group, “I was like, here’s someone who know what I’m going through, and they know how I feel, “he remembers,” and it’s beautiful.
At the group’s meetings, noted Borelli, who speaks softly after years of rehabilitative therapy, “Everyone said, ‘Take your time. Take your time to tell your story,’ and then we all clapped for each other.” .”
Aphasia does not affect intelligence, so some people with aphasia liken life to a prison in their own brain; he can think, but he cannot speak or understand spoken or written language. These conditions can prevent them from speaking, reading, writing or understanding, sometimes a combination of these, sometimes all of them. According to the American Stroke Association, at least 2 million people in the US have aphasia, mostly as a result of a stroke.
“Aphasia is so isolating,” said another Aphasia Community Group founder, Jerry Kaplan, a Boston University speech-language pathologist who has led the organization since its inception. “Newcomers always say to me at some point, ‘I thought I was the only one.'”
Thousands of people have attended the group since it began more than three decades ago, and for many it “has become a very important part of their lives,” he said.
“A place that feels safe, comfortable,” Kaplan said. “It’s a place to meet other people who have the same challenges.”
After Blatt suffered a stroke at age 48, he and his wife, Judy, quickly recognized the need for a local support network. At that time, there was not even a national group; The National Aphasia Association was founded in 1987, a few years after Blatt’s aphasia diagnosis.
“There was nothing when Howie had his stroke,” said Judy, now a 46-year-old elementary school teacher with two daughters in college. “Boy, we’d appreciate having something. I mean, we’re so young.”
The Aphasia Community Group — part of the Aphasia Resource Center at Boston University’s Sargent College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences — attracts people of all ages. Its members mainly live in New England, but during the coronavirus pandemic the meetings have moved to Zoom, allowing people from all over the country to call and join.
Many participants considered Blatt an inspirational figure, given his eclectic array of post-stroke accomplishments. Commonly known as Howie, he was unable to return to his job as a computer hardware designer at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratories after his stroke, but he worked on ways to regain as much function as possible.
A drawing was made for the Blatts by one of their two daughters, Julia Blatt, for their 40th wedding anniversary.
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He progressed from a wheelchair to a metal brace to a plastic leg support. He did extensive physical, occupational and speech therapy. He regained his driver’s license, then drove cross-country on his own several times, documenting his travels with copious photographs. He dabbled in sculpting and designing additions to his home.
“He built tables, he built cabinets, he built cabinets,” recalls Judy Blatt, now 87. “He knew how to do things with one hand.”
He studied grammar to try to improve his speech, treating English as a foreign language to be relearned. He also created a newsletter called The Aphasia Advocate.
Throughout rehab, Blatt documented his work in binders, giving himself titles. Immediately after the stroke, he scored flunking in all categories. Eventually, his grades improved, and he got an A, too.
For decades, he was a devoted member of the Aphasia Community Group, as was his wife of 64 years, Judy.
When Borelli, a former principal, started attending meetings and met Blatt, he thought: “I want to be like Howie,” he recalled.
“I think Howie is an example of what he can do with all the losses he’s had,” Judy Blatt said. “She’s like a model.”
Other group members, he added, “can look at Howie and see what he can do, because he’s already done it.”
The Aphasia Community Group, which will celebrate its 35th anniversary next year, is one of Blatt’s most enduring accomplishments, and “for those who have lived with it over the years, it’s like family,” Kaplan said.
“This is a resilient person who was really given a hard break in midlife, with a small child, at the top of his game in his profession, and his gift of communication was generally wasted,” Kaplan said of Blatt. “But he didn’t give up on this for 40-plus years. And not only did he survive, he thrived.”
